Backpack, A great buy!
Written: Apr 16 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great speed and price
Cons: could be faster :)
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| Cosmofind.com's Full Review: MicroSolutions Backpack CDRW |
The Backpack CD-rewriter is one of my favorite buys of the year. It allows me to save all of my files for backup and storage. With the use of a CD ROM burner, I don’t have to keep all my music files and documents on my computer, I can now utilize CD’s the way I do floppy disks.
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Specs
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The Backpack is a small, external cd-rw that is about 6"x12". It reads cd rom’s at 20x (of 150k set as 1x standard, meaning, 3000k per second 3mb). This, alone, is faster than my computer’s, so I use it for reading CD ROM’s when speed is important (loading files). Second, It writes cd’s at 4x speed (600k per second), meaning that I can copy a full cd of 650 megabytes in about 15-20 minutes. It’s great for large file transfers, when I’m backing up one of my older computers; my IBM p90 had 750 mb of hard disk so I backed up the entire thing! Finally, It rewrites at a speed of 4x, as well. This is astonishing, a 4x rewriting machine is quite a steal. I can rewrite my CD RW’s in 20 minutes, allowing me to reuse those cd’s that I want to discard information.
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Software
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The Backpack cd-rewriter comes with a cd bundle of software that is usable for your backpack. The program’s are all adaptec that are introductions to burning; they easily show you how to copy music cd’s, and backup data. One of the bad things about the software they provide is it’s lack of depth; you aren’t able to automatically transfer mp3’s to wav formatted cd files, so you have to manually transfer it, in order to backup mp3’s into a cd that can be heard on a cd player.
It’s software also doesn’t allow you to hold a maximum capacity on each cd. The adaptec software only allows a Max of 550 mb per 650 mb cd, that’s an extra 100mb lost. Some programs, such as cdrwin and nero allow you to get around 630mb.
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Compliance
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I was worried about the reliability and service of my machine when I first bought it; I had bought it from outpost.com. I was worried if there were any problem’s, if I would be able to cope with them. My first major hurdle was the win2k factor. Windows 2000 was not supported by the backpack’s software, so I called them up at their 1-415 number. It was a nuisance not being a 1-800, but the call was brief, with a human . They quickly took my email address and said that they would email me the patch in 2-3 weeks when it was done. It came in 7 days.
Overall, I am more pleased than every with my backpack. It is probably a steal at $279, and even worked on my other old p90!
Cosmofind.com
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Cosmofind.com
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Member: Faryan Amir-Ghassemi
Location: Potomac, Maryland
Reviews written: 50
Trusted by: 12 members
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